Overview:

Step Into A World

"Kevin Powell is pushing to bring, as he has so brilliantly done before, the voices of his generation: the concerns, the cares, the fears, and the fearlessness. Step into a World is a kaleidoscope into the world not bound by artificial constructs like nation. John Coltrane recorded ‘Giant Steps,’ which is a riff on the sight and sounds in his muse. Powell plays the computer with equal astuteness." ?Nikki Giovanni

"Those of us who pay attention were aware that the younger generation of black writers was being smothered by the anointment of talented tenth Divas and Divuses, and their commercial accommodationist ‘Fourth Renaissance. ’This anthology is indeed a breakthrough! It combines the boldness and daring of hip-hop with the intellectual keenness of a Michele Wallace or a Clyde Taylor." ?Ishmael Reed

"In a culture where videos, the Internet, and other high-tech communication is being consumed like the latest mind-altering drug, how does great literature grow and survive? These writers will answer that all-important question. This anthology provides a clue, a hint, as to where we might be going. They are resisting all this vacant, empty-minded nothingness. Read them. Listen to them. If you don’t, you do so at your peril." ?Quincy Troupe

Synopsis:

Step Into A World

"Kevin Powell is pushing to bring, as he has so brilliantly done before, the voices of his generation: the concerns, the cares, the fears, and the fearlessness. Step into a World is a kaleidoscope into the world not bound by artificial constructs like nation. John Coltrane recorded 'Giant Steps,' which is a riff on the sight and sounds in his muse. Powell plays the computer with equal astuteness." -Nikki Giovanni

"Those of us who pay attention were aware that the younger generation of black writers was being smothered by the anointment of talented tenth Divas and Divuses, and their commercial accommodationist 'Fourth Renaissance. 'This anthology is indeed a breakthrough! It combines the boldness and daring of hip-hop with the intellectual keenness of a Michele Wallace or a Clyde Taylor." -Ishmael Reed

"In a culture where videos, the Internet, and other high-tech communication is being consumed like the latest mind-altering drug, how does great literature grow and survive? These writers will answer that all-important question. This anthology provides a clue, a hint, as to where we might be going. They are resisting all this vacant, empty-minded nothingness. Read them. Listen to them. If you don't, you do so at your peril." -Quincy Troupe

Essence - Patrick Henry Bass

Cultural critic Kevin Powell's Step into a World is a watershed moment in hip-hop writing, a thought-provoking book with a broad range of voices, from Ben Okri to Junot Didaz.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments

The Word Movement

1

Are Black People Cooler than White People?

15

GWTW

19

Race Natters - The Chattering Classes Convene on Martha's Vineyard

23

In Search of Alice Walker

26

Mama's Girl

32

The Visible Man

37

Return to the Planet of the Apes

40

The Sports Taboo: Why blacks are like boys and whites are like girls

42

Are We Tiger Woods Yet?

49

On the Disappearance of Joe Wood Jr.

51

She and I

53

White Girl?

59

What Happens When Your 'Hood Is the Last Stop on the White Flight Express?

68

Texaco

78

Speaking in Tongues

80

Your Friendly Neighborhood Jungle

82

Hip-Hop Hi-Tech

91

Homophobia: Hip-Hop's Black Eye

95

The Death of Rock n' Roll

101

Confessions of a Hip-Hop Critic

105

hip-hop feminist

107

This Is Not a Puff Piece

113

Live from Death Row

124

Hit 'Em Up: On the Life and Death of Tupac Shakur

133

Angles of Vision

143

The Soul of Black Talk

152

Do Books Matter?

159

The Other Side of Paradise - Feminist Pedagogy, Toni Morrison Iconography, and Oprah's Book Club Phenomenon

163

She's Gotta Have It

172

No Entry

174

What About Black Romance?

177

"It be's that way sometimes 'cause I can't control the rhyme." - Notes from the Post-Soul Intelligentsia

183

Facing Unknown Possibilities: Lance Jeffers and the Black Aesthetic

195

The White Boy Shuffle

203

Interpolation: Peace to My Nine

207

Epilogue: Women Like Us

211

The Sun, the Moon, the Stars

213

Prologue, 1963

223

The Emperor's Babe

227

the missionary position

229

My Son, My Heart, My Life

238

The Last Integrationist

252

slave

256

The Famished Road

262

Stigmata

265

The Pagoda

269

face

273

The Peculiar Second Marriage of Archie Jones

281

Baker

282

Rika

288

Butterfly Burning

296

The Intuitionist

299

Safari

307

The Rumor

307

Fugue

308

The Clearing

311

I Dream of Jesus

311

personal

312

Tat Tvam Asi (You Are the One)

316

One Irony of the Caribbean

318

Legba, Landed

320

Excursion to Port Royal

322

Dear Mr. Ellison

323

Assam

323

Church Y'all

324

The Yellow Forms of Paradise

327

swampy river

329

from "Awakening"

332

Sleep

334

When the Neighbors Fight

335

You Are Chic Now, Che

336

Visitation: Grenada, 1978

337

100 Times

339

Discubriendo una Fotografia de mi Madre

340

sometime in the summer there's october

340

The Outcome

344

Toi Derricotte at Quail Ridge Books

345

Nairobi Streetlights

346

3 movements

347

The Night when Mukoma Told the Devil to Go to Hell

348

Autobiography of a Black Man

350

Spotlight at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe

351

Blue

353

Patrimony

354

Intermission in three acts in service of PLOT

355

Calypso the outside woman

357

The Woman

358

Woman

359

Sunday

361

Purple Impala

362

Windows of Exile

363

gin and juice

364

Collection Day

365

Insomnia

366

Shrine outside Basquiat's Studio, September 1988

367

Black Youth Black Art Black Face - An Address

371

leaving a feminist organization: a personal/poetics

374

we are trying to (have me) conceive

376

if we've gotta live underground and everybody's got cancer/will poetry be enuf? - A Letter to Ntozake Shange

380

Binga - Diary Entry

385

The Six-Hour Difference: A Dutch Perspective on the New World

388

Just Beneath the Surface - An Email

395

By Invitation - An Open Letter to the President of South Africa

398

What Happened to Your Generation's Promise of "Love and Revolution"? - A Letter to Angela Davis

401

An Atlantic Away: A Letter from Africa

404

Contributors

419

Self-Portraith Radcliffe Bailey, the Cover Artist

452

Selected Bibliography of Black Literature

453

Books Essential to Understanding Hip-Hop Culture

457

Permissions

459

Index

467

Patrick Henry Bass

Cultural critic Kevin Powell's Step into a World is a watershed moment in hip-hop writing, a thought-provoking book with a broad range of voices, from Ben Okri to Junot Didaz.
— Essence

Library Journal

This anthology of young, contemporary black writers generally maintains a precarious balance between authentic discovery and promotional marketing, although the writing varies widely in quality and relevance (some selections are quite riveting, others just self-absorbed). Divided into six sections--"Essays," "Hip-Hop Journalism," "Criticism," "Fiction," "Poetry," and "Dialogue"--the collection presents a broad range of voices and perspectives, although a majority of them are, not surprisingly, from the United States. While some of the texts, particularly those on hip-hop, seem overly dramatic and hyperbolic, some very fine writing emerges in the "Essays" section. Mostly autobiographical, these selections address the very real contemporary problems of black identity in a post-Civil Rights era in which the political battle lines have become much more blurred and the issues of self, nation, class, gender, sexuality, and history are immensely complicated. The items in the "Dialogue" section are the most strident and the most inventive and compelling. Even though this book will mainly be used as a classroom textbook, it could be a valuable addition to larger collections and other libraries interested in offering brief introductions to young black writers.--Roger A. Berger, Everett Community Coll., WA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.